In the Grip of Destiny
by Infinite Incantatum
Summary: We all know that Minerva McGonagall hates Divination, especially when Sybill Trelawney Practices it. But why? The first round robin completed by the AlbusandMinerva yahoo group now published for everyone to see.


In the Grip of Destiny  
  
An Albus and Minerva Group Round Robin  
  
Summery: We all know that Minerva McGonagall hates Divination, especially when Sybill Trelawney Practices it. But why?  
  
Note: dreams are denoted by dream sequence Part 1 – Isis Malfoy  
  
Prologue  
  
Minerva glowered as the Divination professor took the cup out of her hands. She turned the cup a few times before looking down at where Minerva and her partner, a Ravenclaw named Sidney Silverwolf, were sitting on their poufs. "I'm afraid you don't possess the inner eye, my dear." The teacher told her. "This cup doesn't speak of a surprise inheritance, no indeed...I fear that I see...the grim!" The class gasped and poor Sidney turned three shades paler.  
  
Minerva stood up and threw her books in her sack. "There is no grim in that cup." She said resolutely. "And as for not possessing the inner eye, believe me, it isn't something I want!" Then to the  
  
surprise of every Gryffindor and Ravenclaw in the room, the usually studious and even-tempered Minerva McGonagall stormed out of the room, slamming the trap door behind her.  
  
Moments after leaving the tower, she was overcome with a blinding pain behind her eyes. Minerva whimpered as the pain set in and slipped down to the floor. She laid her head on the cool stones,  
  
tears filling her eyes as the migraine pounded away at her. The pain overloaded her nerves and she slipped into unconsciousness, the outside world falling away.  
  
Chapter 1  
  
  
  
Minerva McGonagall touched her forehead lightly and closed her eyes. Her head was pounding. "Not now, not now..." She whispered pleadingly to whatever deities were listening. As the headache got  
  
worse, her vision grew fuzzy and dim. Thankfully, she didn't have another class for an hour, so she sank lower into the soft wing chair she was in, and prayed that no one else came into the staff room. She wasn't particularly lucky today, however. Only seconds after finally forming that coherent wish the door opened and Remus Lupin came in arguing with Severus Snape, a big black dog on their heels. The argument was decidedly less hostile than it once would have been, almost more like banter, and the dog was even playfully nudging both parties further into the room, probably because he wanted to be able to stand on two legs at least for a little while. Ordinarily McGonagall would have been proud of her former students, but today she just wanted them to shut up. The pain sharpened, and her stomach began to roll. With a hiss, she curled into a ball and  
  
shut her eyes tightly.  
  
The movement caught the room's other occupant's attention. All three turned to her in surprise, the dog, now a tall man named Sirius Black. "Professor?" Black whispered in concern.  
  
"Shut...up..." She managed to grind out. "I....have...a....headache."  
  
"Sorry." All three men apologized quietly, before slipping over to the other side of the room to continue their conversation in a whisper.  
  
Minerva settled back into the chair and had almost fallen asleep when a misty voice above her began to speak. "Headache, Professor? Poor dear...yes I saw this the other day, great pains will come to the  
  
deputy headmistress, my tea cup said...." Slowly, McGonagall opened her eyes and glared at the bug-looking woman above her. "I could have helped you prevent it, but knowing your feelings about divination, I didn't think you'd be receptive..."  
  
"Sybill, I am in pain. And I am not in the mood for your misguided, self- serving, doomsday prophesies. So shut up."  
  
Trelawney bristled. "Forgive me for trying to help. Honestly Minerva, I don't know why you are so dead set against believing divination...."  
  
"Sybill." McGonagall sat up and pulled her wand from her robes. With a shaking hand, she pointed it directly at the other professor. Across the room Lupin, Snape and Black watched with interest. "So  
  
help me heaven, if you don't quit talking, I will make you quit."  
  
"Now, now, My Dear Professor McGonagall...there is no reason to be....."  
  
"Exsisto Silens!" Trelawney kept talking after the transfiguration professor spat out her curse, but no sound came from her mouth. After a few minutes of trying to produce any kind of sound, and realizing  
  
that it wasn't happening, Trelawney closed her mouth and glared.  
  
McGonagall sighed with relief. "That's better." She struggled up and fumbled her way to the door. "And Sybill, don't ever call me your dear anything again."  
  
Trelawney glowered for a moment as McGonagall retreated from the room, then turned to the three professors staring, gaping at where McGonagall had been. Sybill rapped her knuckles against the table they were sitting at. Three pairs of eyes shifted to her, and she narrowed her eyes, clearly expecting them to fix the problem. They shook their head nervously. "Ummmm...maybe...maybe Hermione Granger will have a solution." Remus suggested softly.  
  
"I'll go get her!" Sirius offered. He went to the door, unlatched it, and turned himself back into a dog, before scampering down the corridor. Anything to get away from Trelawney, she gave him the  
  
creeps. He found Hermione on her way to charms, walking with Harry and Ron. They heard him bark and turned to wait. "Snuffles!" Harry greeted him excitedly.  
  
Snuffles licked Harry's hand and enjoyed having his head scratched by Ron and Hermione for a minute, before he remembered his mission. He gave two short barks and grabbed the sleeve of the girl's robe, tugging her along. "Relative of yours Granger?" A smooth as oil voice asked from behind.  
  
The three Gryffindor students and turned. "Malfoy." Ron spat.  
  
The dog stepped in front of them, and snarled. Draco looked down at the tense animal in front of his enemies. Snuffles bared his teeth.  
  
Draco backed away. "See you in potions Potter, Weasley." He snarled as he swept away.  
  
After one last growl at the slytherin's back, Snuffles again grabbed Hermione's sleeve and began to tug. She looked back at the two boys over her shoulder. "I'll see you guys in a bit I guess." She called as she followed.  
  
******  
  
She watched herself as she kneeled at the foot of a great bed. She felt sadness clench her chest as she looked on her best friend, lying pallid and somehow looking small, amongst the covers. She reached out with her left hand and grasped his tightly. There was a clink in the quiet as their wedding bands touched. He turned his head, with effort, and gave her a sad smile. "We had a wonderful life  
  
together my dear."  
  
"It should have been longer." She argued tearfully.  
  
"Really Minerva." He scolded her lovingly. "How much longer should we have had?"  
  
"Forever." She told him petulantly.  
  
"Soon...soon..." The he gasped and began to cough.  
  
She stood swiftly and sat next to him, running her fingers through his still long hair to calm him. "Rest now, love."  
  
Minerva sat up in her bed, tears in her eyes and a not particularly lady- like word on the tip of her tongue. "I get it, but it isn't set in stone, so stop trying to push me!" She yelled at the room. As always, the headache was gone, but she felt weak and dizzy in its place, so instead of getting up, she flopped back on the covers and tried to hold back the tears as she recalled her first "dream."  
  
*****  
  
Minerva was five, and she was so thrilled to start school. She was finally a big girl like her older brothers and sister. They were in the middle of story time when she began to feel the sharp pains in her head and she started to cry. The teacher tried to calm her down but the pain was increasing and her sobs became hysterical. The teacher couldn't calm her and when she realized that the poor  
  
girl kept touching her head, she took her to the nurses office. Moments after the frantic teacher had laid her on the cot, she was asleep.  
  
But Minerva remembered none of this. After the pain had started, her vision had blurred and the sounds got loud and distorted, until finally she blacked out. That was when she had the dream.  
  
She was a small tabby cat and she was running in circles around a pair of legs. After a few minutes she settled down next to the pair of legs and rubbed her face into the velvet robe. Another  
  
man entered the room, making Minerva's fur stand on end. Her amber eyes narrowed as the dark haired man swept into the room. He wore black robes and his skin was pale from never seeing the sun. He did seem less arrogant than the last time she had seen him, but that didn't change how wary of him she was. Her ears flattened against her round head and she let out a threatening hiss.  
  
The dark man hadn't noticed her, and he jumped a bit, which gave her no end of satisfaction. The man who she was curled up next to scolded her gently. "Minerva."  
  
The other man raised his thin black eyebrow and Minerva raised her eyes to the man above her. His eyes were twinkling blue behind half moon spectacles, although he frowned at her from under his auburn and grey peppered beard, she sensed he was more than a little amused at her display of temper. She meowed, somewhat in apology, somewhat in a display of cute false innocence. He chuckled.  
  
"Albus?" The guest drawled.  
  
The wizard she liked nodded his head. "Yes Severus. I know, we have serious business to attend to."  
  
"Actually, I was going to ask why you named your cat after Professor McGonagall. I'm surprised she wasn't insulted." Severus drawled with a hint of a smirk on his thin lips.  
  
"Minerva. Perhaps you should join this conversation." He addressed her with a meaningful glance over the tops of his spectacles.  
  
She felt her body transform, then she was no longer a cat, but a young woman with long dark hair pulled back in a braid. Her eyes were no longer amber, but black, and still trained distrustfully on the other man from her spot on Albus's right. Her body was tense beneath the silk lavender robes.  
  
"You're an animagus." Severus stated, as if he wasn't surprised at all.  
  
"A rather astute, if fairly obvious observation Mr. Snape." She demeaned him coolly.  
  
"Really you two. You are both on the same side." Albus interrupted in exasperation.  
  
Minerva trailed her eyes over Severus. Finally she lifted her eyes back to his. Severus saw mistrust, scorn, and maybe even a little disgust, in their depths. "That remains to be seen." She turned to Albus and smiled tenderly at him. "For now, I will allow him only the chance to change my mind. Goodnight Albus. Severus." Then she left the room.  
  
The little girl woke up in confusion. She knew the woman in her dream was supposed to be her, but she didn't know either of the gentlemen. And she wouldn't until later in life.  
  
*****  
  
She had dreams of the future, sometimes hers, sometimes that of other people since that day. She'd nearly fainted when Dumbledore had greeted her and the other first years when she'd started at  
  
Hogwarts, and slowly over time she'd met the others as well. By his fifth year she'd known Snape would become bad, and she knew that fate planned for him to turn back to the good side, but she also knew that human beings had free will, and if he chose, he could easily remain evil. She'd never told anyone about the dreams except her father. Not her mother, not her beloved eldest brother, not even Albus. But after hexing another professor she'd have to have some kind of explanation. And she had one hell of a time lying to the headmaster. 


End file.
